All Forum Posts by: Shawn W.

I'm also looking in to VA construction loan as well, potentially for a BRRRR property. Could you please expand on why it creates appraisal problems? Thank you! @Scott Schnabel

@Edet Umoren Curious if you ended up getting the VA One time close construction loan?

Hi BP community! 

With many people's help I recently made my first buy-and-hold purchase of a duplex in Fort Wayne, as an OOS investor! Super excited and definitely wanted to learn more and do more in this market! Looking forward to connect with like-minded investors and RE professionals online or in person. In fact I'll be visiting Fort Wayne to explore from 7/20-7/23, drop a line if any particular area/places I should check out! (RE or fun) Let me know if anybody's interested in a coffee chat! 

Love the community. 

Full of gratitude, 

Shawn

 Hi @Bryan F. , Thank you! I sent in the appeal form on Friday but did not attached supporting docs. I think I've probably passed the deadline by now but I thought I saw somewhere on the website mentioned that I can submit the document after the initial appeal has been submitted? Do you know if there's still chance for me to follow up or submit evidence upon request? Would you mind talk me through the process a bit after the appeal is initiated? Do they need me to go into any virtual/in-person meetings? (i'm a remote investor) 

Unfortunately the appraisal came in very high so I'll need to pull comparable sales! This property is already recorded as 'income approach' for 2024, I believe the previous landlord had set it up that way. The house is currently vacant as I'm doing some repairs and posting ads to get tenant in. I assume I don't need to ask the previous LL for a lease (if that helps at all) in order to do this appeal? 

Sorry for all the questions! My closing date was so close to this appeal deadline and I'm scrambling to get through this process. 

Hi BP community, 

New investor here recently purchased my first investment property (duplex) in Fort Wayne! Has anyone had experience for assessed property value appeal and/or has general advice on lowering property tax you could share? 

The property's assessed valued jumped a lot in 2024, and I'm currently filing an appeal form. 

-How's the process like? As a remote investor, do I need to physically be there to meet the county assessors? 

-What kind of evidence / document is need for the back up? How do you approach the appeal? - for now I'm stating that the property condition has not be improved since the year before, and pointed out there are many the delayed maintenance. Anything else you would include? comps? 

Any kind of advice is welcomed, thank you!

Shawn

Thanks @Staci Rogers & @Stephen DiJulius I'll reach out! 

Hi BP community,

I recently had my mind set on investing in Fort Wayne, Indiana from out of state. This will be my first investment so definitely appreciate any advice or help in general! 

I haven't seen many Fort Wayne discussion on BP. I wonder anyone familiar with the market could give me some intro/breakdown on the submarkets neighborhood?

My hope is to buy in B- to A- area, prefer a small 2-4 unit (they don't seem to be very easy to find). SFR with positive cashflow would work too.

It doesn't have to be, but I m curious how new construction is in Fort Wayne as well. I don't see a lot of them, at least on the open zillow/redfin sites. I wonder anyone have any thoughts/experience on new construction in that market? 

I'm mostly interested in buy and hold for my first investment. LTR is good, but would like to explore MTR as well. 

Last but most importantly, I would love to start building a team and connect with Realtors, Property manages and investors, appreciate recommendations! 

Thank you, 
Shawn

Hi @Doug Quist thank you, the breakdown is so helpful to see! As I looked into it more and as many have suggested mid-west markets, I've now zoomed in my focus towards Alabama and Indiana. I am still very interested in Utah in general, but this may need to be step 3 or 4 after I build up some reserve from smaller projects. Thank you! In the meantime if you have a good team in SLC area you'd recommend please kindly drop me a line! 

@Jana Cain thank you for the lists! i found some groups on Meetup and signed a few events! Perhaps will see you soon from one of them! 

@William Hochstedler took me a while to digest and research. Thank you so much for this in-depth area breakdown. I'll send a request to connect if that's ok! 

Hi Bigger Pockets community!

New investor here in San Francisco Bay Area, looking for local meet ups and getting connected with like-minded communities!

A little bit about myself:

Day-time, I do project management for corporate real estate clients, and a registered architect. I'm so inspired to get into 'night-time' residential RE investment. Although I understand that corporate real estate is so different from residential, I hope that some knowledge and skills are transferable and I can turbo charge and learn fast!

I have a few ideas/tools in mind to get into my first deal, although I don't have to execute all of them if they don't make sense financially:

1. Looking into house hack strategy with my husband's VA loan. Location-wise we work between San Bruno - Alameda, many locations could work for us commute-wise. However, the hard part is the expensive bay area entry price - even with the VA loan, it's still difficult to find places that makes sense for both while we house hack and when it's turned into investment property if we move. So we are still researching.

2. Out of state investment in a more cash flow friendly, affordable market. (eg. Alabama, Utah)  Hopefully this is a strategy to get my feet wet with relatively small capital investment.

3. Also looking into the possibility of providing private lending. With today's interest rate, this may be a viable option, compared to buying physical RE.

Thank you for bearing with me for laying out my thoughts here. I know it may sound like I'm spreading butter thin everywhere, but I'm learning my way into narrowing down the options, or strategizing/timing them in the right sequence.

Anyways, I'd love to connect and learn with / from the community. If there are local RE meetup events in the Bay Area please kindly drop a line!

Happy investing, 

Shawn